Hacker News Reader

Comment by Bud | Hacker News Reader

It's more than "a little odd". It's a blatant lie.

No, it is factually accurate. Instead of firing the CEO, they decided to pivot. Regardless if it was the decision they would have made with no restrictions placed on the company, it is the decision they made, all external factors included.

No. Deciding is when you have a choice. They didn't have a choice. This is a lie.

Yes, they did. They had a choice to fire Holmes and keep on with the blood testing what have you, and didn't. It is factually accurate and not defending them nor spin to say that. I'm sure it was considered.

This outcome was not a certainty. I think the feds wanted that choice, to be honest. It's a smart play: we don't like Elizabeth Holmes or the work you're doing, but we maybe sorta kinda want to see you succeed because it's a pretty good idea if you'd get your shit together, so pick one and fix it.

Is it 100% true that all that would be needed was to fire Holmes?

No, we mean then they wouldn't have had to pivot. She was banned.

They're under investigation for basically lying about the tech behind their core business model. There are fundamental problems not fixed by simply firing Holmes. Pivoting or closing shop seemed inevitable.

maybe they would have to have a functioning product also

>They had a choice to fire Holmes

According to

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/elizabeth-holmes-ther...

>Holmes, meanwhile, isn’t going anywhere. As the C.E.O. and chairwoman of Theranos, only she can elect to replace herself.

Hmm. Surely under the circumstances, assuming she's somewhat rational and aware of fiduciary duty, she'd entertain the idea with her board. Can always bring her back. Then again...

Technically true but I think it's practically false. Theranos isn't in the black and won't be any time soon. They need the indulgence of investors to continue. My guess is a large fraction of current stockholders preferred this outcome.

Honestly, it hard to see why. She does have name recognition, but it's like Martin "I'll jack up the price of your drug and laugh about it"-type notoriety

CEOs of pre-IPO companies rarely get pushed out?

What is an investor saying if they choose to fire a CEO? Fundamentally they are saying that they misjudged the CEO... they're a poor judge of character.

* CEO gets sued: bending the rules seems to be totally ok. Just another risk factor.

* Company spending years in R&D: Science takes time.

* CEO runs out of money: There's always an element of risk. Was an interesting play but didn't pan out, NEXT!

Here's the best possible exit for a failing science based startup:

* Acquisition with large dollar value in the press release based on "reaching certain technical milestones".

But anyway... I think in Theranos' case the investors are still... invested.

There's still a lot of money coming in from China, maybe they think someone in China will buy them for a huge chunk of change regardless? (does happen, and acquisition and investment often don't reflect how good the basic technology is).

Maybe there's already a private market in Theranos shares, giving them some liquidity?

Maybe they still genuinely think it's a good idea. Honestly, neither you nor I would have invested in them. But they already DID!

Surely there are enough negatives surfacing about Holmes and Theranos in general that... while firing the CEO may admit that they had been a bad judge of character, not firing her indicates that they still are.

Maybe. Or perhaps now they're going to keep her on a very short leash. In their shoes I could see bringing in a strong executive team, people with significant health care experience, while putting her in the role of visionary founder who does a lot of PR and rah-rah but has very low operational control.

Exactly. You have an individual at the head of the corporation that has done fraud. Do you really believe that's going to change from this point? Most people would have enough sense to let shame see them out. That's even more alarming.

I imagine it was because the technology that they were pushing didn't work. So even with Holmes out of the way and the ability to continue doing what they were doing g there was no point, it didn't work they were never going to get it work the way it was supposed to, so they pivot and keep her on as the oonly way they could potentially still make a return for investors. I imagine a lot of people have invested a lot of money and now want to get some sort of product out the door and an IPO or Military Contract to recoup some costs.

Tangential, but what's really bad is even Martin Shkrelli commented that the EpiPen pricing was outrageous. That's kinda like Hitler saying you're too much of a tyrant.

She's owns it all. They can't fire her. She has controlling shares of everything.

yes but to be fair blatantly lying has been their business model from the very beginning

They could still stay open and not accept Medicaid/Medicare payments. It would just be terrible for business.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com